I Loved You
by Xeen Cyr
Summary: based on The Dreamscape. Peter rant. Missing scenes.


**FRINGE**

**I Loved You**

No inFRiNGEment intended. I'm playing with the characters: I will put them back in their box when I'm finished.

Note: based on _The Dreamscape. _Peter rant. missing scenes. please review ;)

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Peter felt torn between the ghosts of his troubled past and the promises of his imperfect future. To rescue one of those ghosts he had let Olivia down in the process, --what did this say about him, his thoughts echoing Tessa's assessment. Helpless, his arms folded tightly against his chest, he stared at the monitor before him. Olivia was basking in the eerie glow of the sensory deprivation tank, her hair floating around her, her expression unreadable.

Walter being Walter, he probably could not resist the temptation of forging new drugs and conducting new bizarre experiments even if he was adamant that to repeat a variation of this experiment was madness, --and he was quite the specialist. Or Olivia had found a way to trust him, or she simply did have the choice.

Surely, if he had been at the lab at the time, he would not have allowed Walter to go ahead with his insane procedure. Surely, he would have been able to persuade Olivia to change her mind. In his book, nothing was worth losing one's sanity, not even her wild goose chase for clues and ultimately the truth. Because there was no such thing as the truth, and he had learnt it the hard way over the years, only infinity of possible paths, a patchwork of plausible outcomes, and at the end of the day, when everything had gone as planned, one possible reality and the uncanny feeling that real truth was elusive and should definitely stay that way.

"I loved you," she whispered in a warm and seductive voice that made Peter winced. "Tonight, during this dinner, I loved you…"

He turned away from his father and agent Farnsworth and watched her face with his eyes half closed, mesmerized by her voice. She was probably unaware that she was thinking out loud. He knew that Olivia had loved John Scott and it did not come as a shock to him but it was a whole different matter altogether to hear her say that she loved him in so many words. To be honest, Olivia's confession sounded utterly disturbing to his ears. He should have known that she was willing to face such an ordeal only for the sake of the investigation. The fact that she didn't want to learn the truth so much as to see John again was unsettling. Surprisingly, her asking to be turned into a mind melding freak qualified as another ordinary day at the office for Astrid and Walter. This was going too far.

Or maybe it was none of his business and he should not be so concerned, --but he was. He was alarmed, upset, worried, distressed, quite frankly he was a whole thesaurus of negative sentiments. Taking for granted that he was entangled in his past, he never thought possible that she could be too. He had to admit she had every right to be, except that being Walter's toy would not provide her with closure any time soon. There must have been another explanation to her boldness, something he had to find out, something he could hold on to for comfort. She would tell him --eventually, when she's ready, or Walter will in the event he remembers why he had accepted to be of any assistance to her while he should have simply refused.

For once, Peter wanted to be part of a greater plan and simply do the right thing. But he had blown it. He clenched his fists, a deep crease on his forehead, gritting his teeth and kept watching. He could not help but feeling guilty that she was in the tank even if he knew he should not because in every possible way, he was not guilty of anything. Apart from leaving her when she needed him the most, he thought. And it was not bad timing or fate or whatever. It was his fault entirely if she was in the tank, risking her sanity and her life, and that she had asked Walter and decided against confiding in him first about this insane decision was no excuse to his carelessness and the fact that he should have been there for her.

"I think you should just come back." Now that he was standing in front of the rusty tank, hoping that Olivia was going to be fine or at least that she will get out of it unharmed, he recalled the urgency in Astrid's voice and understanding finally sank in; the reason why Farnsworth had called him in the first place, --the way she had managed to control her voice on the phone, the light tone of sheer panic underneath her professional façade. She was worried probably because Walter had asked her to call him and had demonstrated that he needed not only his son but a Bible. Religion and science are hardly compatible. That fringe science, pseudo science, weird science was dangerously tending to witchcraft. Walter had opened the can of worms a long time ago and they seemed to have thriven vigorously in this very lab. From where he stood, he could see the book, laying wide open on Walter's bench, and he could remember some truths from his past, some truths that he had forgotten everything about --but it was all coming back now, reaching near to the surface, and with it, his anger subsided. He glanced awkwardly at his father and realized that Walter was unexpectedly worried, probably as much as he was.

"But you were lying to me about who you were," Olivia continued, a crack suddenly showing in her self-confidence. Her voice, so different on the speakers boomed inside the lab, startling him again. He watched her float in the saline solution, wishing he could hold her and console her. He had had time to mull over what she had told him on her birthday. With her father out of the picture, the abusive figure of her stepfather and probably a string of ex lovers who had broken her heart, no wonder she had sought comfort in the company of her partner; that much he could reflect on. She could deal with rejection but not with betrayal, he thought. And she was not happy with the cinematic ending of her relationship with John Scott, the frightening scope of his incredible illness, her impossible stunt to get him back to life, their deadly car chase. It was like a big fat thriller except that it was her life really not a film noir. It was her reckless attitude that had lead John to his untimely death before she could get all the answers from him, the answers she needed to move on with her life and stay the perfect agent on top of her game she wanted to be. That was the reason she had gone back into the tank. It was not just to get him out of her head. John was just another piece of her personal puzzle and she was determined to get every last shred of evidence from figments of his memories still embedded in her mind.

"I mean, did you ever have any feelings for me at all, or was it all just..."

Somehow, he wished he could erase from THEIR memories her candid confession to her dead lover. That was not something they should have witnessed. Ever. She seemed so fragile, with her pain on display, so dazzled by the depth of his duplicity. He closed his eyes and moved towards the tank doors. This was going to end badly, he could feel it deep down in his bones and he was ready to get her out of the tank even if he had to fight Walter to do it. Oblivious of Walter and Astrid, he concentrated on Olivia who was trying to decipher reality inside John's memories, and waited.

Her sudden distress brought his mind back to the lab, to the situation at hand and to her. She was yelling, crying out for help. He glanced at Walter out of the corner of his eye and dashed to the tank, fanning the doors open and retrieved her, water dripping on the floor, on his clothes, and she shook violently with utter terror, her back arched and her legs held stiff, shouting from the top of her lungs. Walter immediately rushed to his side, the perfect image of the top-notch scientist he had never ceased to be and Peter had a glimpse of the man he might have been, back in the days, long before Massive Dynamic and all the Big Eddies of the world had kicked in. Walter checked her vitals and nodded absently, obvious relief showing on his face.

Whatever she had just seen in John's memories, it was not up for discussion right now and he was hoping that she had not found the winning ticket for another ten years in therapy. He tried to hug her tightly, in an attempt to stop her incontrollable shudder. But she continued to buck, her hands clenched on his soaked shirt, incoherent words pouring out of her mouth. She clung to him, grasping his arms, her eyes wide, her mouth twisting in panic. For one brief moment, he feared that she had lost her mind and could not recognize him.

"Are you okay?" he breathed in her ear.

She nodded and suddenly fell limply on his lap, and he rocked her gently, whispering words of comfort, stroking her back, his chin resting on the top of her head. Astrid wrapped them in a huge bath towel and he mouthed a thank you in her direction. The young assistant cast him a brilliant smile and guided Walter away holding him firmly by the elbow. He heard them discuss the use of fabric softener and bleach before they left the building in search of the perfect macchiato. The door to the lab was slammed shut and locked, and silence, only slightly disturbed by the sluggish movements of Gene and the constant humming of the computers and consoles, replaced the previous confusion.

They stayed a while on the floor, her breathing slowly returning to normal. She cuddled in his arms curling up against him and began sobbing softly. She was shivering now and mumbling to herself. He held her tighter and moved her to the couch in her office. But she snuggled on to him, refusing to let go of his warmth. For a moment that seemed like forever, they stayed there, locked in this embrace in the receding light.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_it took me like forever to write this one...  
i'm not sure it is any good, but i have to let it go at some point..._


End file.
